Dancing At Last
by Mellia Bee
Summary: Steve Rogers fought a good fight and finished his course. Now it's time to finally turn his back on the future and go home to see if he can have some of that life Tony talked about - and maybe in the process he'll try to fix a thing or two along the way. Post Endgame, split timeline theory. No slash.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

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Steve Roger's heart banged against his ribs until it hurt.

If somebody had asked him, he'd have sworn his pre-serum asthma had returned, making it impossible to draw a full breath. His hands were shaking, and suddenly he was glad he hadn't brought flowers after all. The stems would have been squashed into limp green strings by this point.

And yet the thing he was facing didn't appear to be frightening at all. It was a plain, ordinary brownstone building, long since subdivided into apartments to allow a variety of families to live within the once-aristocratic walls. It wasn't in a bad part of town, or a good part, for that matter - just a mediocre area where nobody would look twice at their neighbor.

It was the perfect place for a secret agent to make her home.

People dodged around him where he stood stock-still in the middle of the sidewalk, shooting him half-hearted looks of annoyance. The low sun lanced between the buildings behind him, heating up the back of his neck.

And still he could not make himself move.

...

"_Does it hurt anybody in the other timeline?" he had asked, back in the future. "If there was a split. Would it hurt anybody?"_

_Banner thought he was talking about the timeline where Loki took off with the Tesseract. "No," he reassured the captain. "I don't think so; not as long as the stones are still in the timeline. Look at what happened with Nebula. Time is malleable; it wants to work out right, even when one thing changes. " _

_Bucky must have heard the conversation. Hours later, he sat down beside the captain, watching the sun set over the lake where they'd laid Stark to rest._

"_Say hi to Carter for me," he said without preamble._

_Steve jolted, startled. "What?"_

"_You heard me." Bucky aimed a knowing eye at his best friend. "Haven't known you this long not to notice when you're thinkin' about doing something stupid."_

_Steve shook his head resolutely against the temptation, folding his threadbare dreams back into his heart. He'd carried those dreams for nearly eighty years now, but since the first mention of the time machine they'd began rising up in his thoughts with increasing persistence. "I can't. World's just getting going again. They'll need all the help they can get."_

_Bucky squinted at the light of the sun slanting through the trees, gleaming off the water. "Steve?"_

"_Yeah?"_

"_Go home." The metal hand clapped him on the shoulder. Bucky looked absolutely serious. "Go home, buddy. War's over. There's a dame waiting for you. We can take care of ourselves just fine."_

_Something swelled up in Steve's throat - an aching longing for that life so intense that it was physically painful. "But what about you?"_

_Bucky looked him in the eye, and Steve could see hard-won peace in his friend's face. "I got a life here. Worked real hard to figure myself out, and I'm happy with that." He shrugged, a faint twist to his lips that might have been a smile. "Besides, I spent seventy years messing the world up; figure now's my chance to pay some of that back."_

_There were no words. The lump of tentative hope and crippling guilt in his throat was so big that Steve couldn't speak. So instead he reached across and tugged his best friend - his brother - into a fierce, desperate hug._

_It seemed so unfair that only one of them should get to go home._

...

Bucky would have laughed at him.

Actually, it was more likely that Bucky would have grabbed him by the arm, towed him up the three flights to the apartment where Peggy lived and shoved him bodily through the door.

Steve wiped both hands on his trouser legs, squared his jaw, and eyed the stairs as if they were the front steps to Hitler's own private bunker.

He could do this. He'd spent more than a decade just _wishing_ for a moment like this, and now that it was real he owed it to himself to at least try.

Besides, if Peggy shot him, at least he'd die having seen her one more time.

Taking a deep breath, he set a foot on the first step and started to climb.

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It was the end of a very long day. Peggy Carter braced one hand against her aching back as she straightened from the paperwork she'd brought home and squinted against the sunlight slanting in through her windows to look at the clock. Time had slipped away from her; it was long past time to start getting dinner.

The months since Peggy's return to the New York SSR office had been marked with little fanfare. Daniel Sousa remained in the California office. For one heady week they'd thought they might have a chance at a future together, but then Thompson had been shot - and somewhere in the middle of all the resulting flurry, Peggy had woken one morning to discover that she was not in love with Daniel.

Certainly she'd liked him - admired him - even had a bit of a case on him - but she wasn't in love with him.

"_Is he the love of your life?" _Michael had asked her so long ago, and then, as now, she hadn't known what to say. Fred hadn't been, and sadly, neither was Daniel.

This realization had been somewhat depressing to both Peggy and Sousa. Perhaps, under other circumstances, they might have overcome this hurdle, might have grown together until they _were_ the love of each others' lives - but the more urgent fact of Thompson's grave injury and the associated logistical complications brought things to a head too quickly.

...

"_It's Phillips," Sousa had said quietly one morning, a hand over the telephone receiver. "He wants you to temporarily lead the New York office in Thompson's place."_

_Peggy met his eyes across the crowded office. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears and the click of her teacup as she set it down was nearly deafening. This was the chance of a lifetime for her - the opportunity that she fully deserved, and they both knew it. They exchanged a long look - and then Peggy made her decision._

"_Tell him I'm on my way," she said, and stood. "I - I'm so sorry, Daniel. I want this."_

_Sousa hadn't answered, not in words anyway. He merely held her gaze a second longer and then nodded quietly, regret and respect mingling in his face. She knew then that he would support her to the end._

_She'd walked out of the California office feeling saddened, and yet free in a way she hadn't been in a long time._

...

Thus it was that Peggy Carter returned to New York alone, with the blessing of Sousa and his promise to back her as the temporary chief of the New York office. Thompson stayed in California, fighting for his life in the hospital. One of his nurses happened to be Daniel's old fiancée, and from what news had managed to filter back to her since, Peggy gathered that she and Sousa were considering picking up where they'd left off.

Peggy rather hoped that they would. Daniel deserved to be happy.

She resolutely ignored the thought that she herself deserved to be happy too. The one man that she'd thought for certain was the love of her life lay dead in the icy North, laid to rest in her heart. Perhaps, she thought a little wearily, the love of one's life was only a once-in-a-lifetime thing - something to be cherished when found, and never forgotten afterward, no matter what other loves might come.

The rest of the agents in the New York office had been greatly surprised and a not a little offended at Peggy Carter taking the position of director _pro tempore_. It wasn't easy; being out west for so long had cost her most of the respect she'd laboriously gained, and the fact that she was still favoring her side even months after being impaled meant that Peggy couldn't do as much fieldwork as she would have liked. So - it was back to the desk and the paperwork, waiting for the Powers That Be to assign a permanent chief in Thompson's place, and wrangling for that position herself.

At least she didn't have to do the lunch orders to do anymore. That was something.

Setting the kettle on the hot plate in her room, Peggy eyed the store of food in her tiny icebox and finally gave up on the idea of anything fancy. Eggs - she'd have some eggs. They still felt like a luxury, though it had been five years since the war and rationing ended.

A knock at the door interrupted her preparations, and she accidentally stuck her thumb through the eggshell, sending yolk and white dripping down her hands and into the bowl along with crumbled bits of shell. Growling under her breath at how jumpy she was, she swiped the dish towel and wiped her hands as she stepped cautiously through the tiny flat.

Who on earth could be calling?

She paused to slip her gun from the side drawer into her palm, and chucked the dish towel into her sink from her place by the front door. It really was a _very_ tiny flat, but at least it was dry and had pleasant, if disinterested, neighbors.

Then she opened the door - and froze.

The man on her doorstep was impossible.

"Peggy," he said - and then simply looked at her as though she were the impossible one, fumbling for words that didn't come.

The world spun around her, and she clutched for the doorknob, struggling to stay upright. He took a half step forward, arm outstretched as if to help, but she brought up her gun and leveled it at him between the eyes.

"_Who are you?" _The words came out in a hoarse whisper, squeezing around her heart, which seemed to be lodged in her throat. The sights on her pistol were wobbling dreadfully; she couldn't keep it steady. Only a sheer effort of will kept her knees from buckling.

He looked at her - _looked_ at her, as though he could do nothing else, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

"Hi," he managed at last, and visibly swallowed hard. His voice was uneven, choked with emotion. "I - I'm late."

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**Hello, all! **

**I started writing fanfiction solely as a way to give Steve and Peggy their happy ending. After Endgame, I walked out of the theater thinking that I could stop at last. The happy ending I wanted for them was finally canon. I was content. I was going to stop writing fanfics.**

**A few weeks later, and after messaging with several of you (you know who you are), I was encouraged to start a post-Endgame story. Personally, I'm a fan of the same-timeline theory, but the idea of meddling in an alternate timeline became too much to resist.**

**And so I give you this. Thanks to those of you who encouraged me to keep writing.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

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"Hi," the man in the doorway said. "I - I'm late."

The unladylike sound that exploded out of Peggy's mouth was neither a laugh nor a sob. Possibly it was both. Her vision clouded, but she refused to let the tears fall, gritting her teeth until pain lanced through her jaw. This couldn't be happening.

Lines in his face tightened at her obvious distress, but the intense expression in his eyes - was it gladness? - didn't diminish. "Can I come in?" he asked carefully.

"Steve died," she snapped, not budging an inch. The words were harsh, breathless, painful as they tore out of her. The gun in her hand was really wobbling now, but she didn't dare let go of the doorknob to steady it with her other hand. "He died in the war. He died a hero, and I _heard him die_, so whoever you are, don't imagine you can fool me."

"I would never." He looked very earnest, as though he meant it. "Try me."

Peggy's mind went blank. Try as she might, her spinning brain couldn't come up with any question concrete enough, foolproof enough to ask. He must have seen her dilemma; his voice was very gentle as he started speaking.

"October '44. Four soldiers jumped you in the woods outside of Verdun. Buck and I were the only ones who saw you when you got back. He stood watch while I got you to your tent and fixed you up. You lost a glove in the fight, so later I went back and found it for you. I never told a soul, Peggy. Not even Bucky knew about the glove. Just you."

A pause. Peggy's heart hammered once - twice - hard against her ribs. Then she slowly lowered the gun. The way she was shaking, she'd probably shoot out the window of the house across the street if she tried to hit the man in her front doorway, even at point-blank range.

"Come in," she told him hoarsely, and peeled her clenched hand from around the doorknob, backing toward the kitchen, never letting him out of her field of vision. She hit her hip hard on the edge of the kitchen table, but didn't notice the pain. He followed slowly, pushing the door shut with one foot, keeping his hands in plain sight with that little furrow in his forehead he always got when he was trying very hard to do something right.

No - with the little furrow _Steve_ always got. This man wasn't Steve, surely not. He couldn't be. She couldn't bear to think he might be.

Hope was too painful to even consider.

Peggy took her eyes off him for a split second, wrenching open a kitchen drawer to swap her gun for a knife. When she looked back at him, he was already rolling up one sleeve as though he knew what she was going to ask.

"Sit down," she croaked.

He pulled out one of the two kitchen chairs with his foot, and sat, laying his bared arm out across the table, palm up. She slowly sat on the other chair across from him, still shaking. Any other man would lay his hand palm down to protect the major veins, or at least watch the knife to make sure she wasn't about to pin his hand to the table with it, but his eyes never left hers, and the trust in them nearly undid her.

"Peggy," he said, as though the very sound of her name was a prayer.

She swallowed hard and slid the blade down the outside of his forearm, leaving a long, shallow line that reddened with a thin rim of blood. It was possibly a bit deeper than she'd meant to make it, but the way she was trembling she was vaguely surprised she hadn't taken his whole arm off by accident. He was trembling too, she noticed, and the look in his eyes was stronger than ever.

Now she recognized that expression. He was looking at her as though he loved her - as though he couldn't get enough of the sight of her - as though he was terrified and hopeful and fearful all at once - and it was too much, far, far too much to take in at the moment.

She tore her gaze away from his, heart jumping unevenly in her chest, and looked back at his arm. It had already scabbed over - and when, with an unsteady hand, she ran her thumb across his warm skin, the scab flaked away, leaving an already-fading pink line.

The knife dropped to the tabletop with a clatter.

"Hey," he said - and she must have lost track of her surroundings for a moment, because all of the sudden he wasn't sitting across the table from her; he was kneeling by her chair, his head on a level with hers, one careful hand hovering beside her shoulder as if to steady her. "Peggy, you okay? You need me to call somebody?"

"_Steve_," she breathed, and turned blindly into his arms.

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The teakettle whistling brought them back to themselves. Steve stretched out an arm from where they sat on the floor and switched the hot plate off. He was crying too, Peggy realized - his face was all wet and his nose was red, and the awestruck wonder in his eyes when he looked at her simply took her breath away.

"You're alive," she quavered, finding coherent words for the first time since fairly falling into his arms. "You - you came back."

He nodded, and wiped his hand across his eyes before wrapping his arm back around her, smiling tremulously. "Yeah. I had a date."

Peggy hiccuped, and wished she could wipe her own eyes, but decided it was more important to keep her hands right where they were, clenched around fistfuls of his jacket. She used her grip to shake him slightly instead, her mixed emotions roiling.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, exasperation winning out for the moment. "It's been so long. Did Howard find you?"

The light in his eyes faded, then - and suddenly he looked more tired than she'd ever seen him, even than after some of the worst missions during the war. Looking up at him as she blinked away her tears, she realized for the first time that his face was older, more mature than that of the young man she'd known and fallen in love with.

Unclenching one of her fists, she raised a hand, fingers drifting lightly across his furrowed forehead, the new lines at the corners of his eyes. With a sigh, he turned his face into her palm, eyelids fluttering closed at her soft touch, his wet eyelashes grazing her skin. All his walls were down, and keen longing showed clear on his face.

It was the most intimate moment they'd ever had together.

She never wanted it to end.

"It's a long story," he began, faltering a little as he finally dragged himself down to earth again. "I - I'm not sure you'll believe me when you hear it."

She considered, looking between his oh-so-subtly altered face and the damp spot on his shoulder where she'd cried on it earlier. Somehow she felt that whatever he had to tell her, it would change her life forever.

"Tell me," she asked simply, and he did.

It took a long time.

Some time during the tale, they ended up on Peggy's couch, one on either end, facing each other over the empty cushion in the middle. A cup of tea steamed in Peggy's hands - she thought Steve must have made it for her; she certainly had no recollection of getting it herself - but it grew cold over the course of his story.

When he was done, neither one talked for a while.

"All I'm hoping for is that dance, Peggy," he finally broke the silence. "One dance. I know it's been long enough that I can't ask for more - but if you'd be willing - unless you - do you still dance?"

Even after all this time, he still was a fumbling idiot when it came to women. Peggy looked at him. His blue eyes were desperately earnest and visibly afraid of her answer. She swallowed hard around the lump of emotion in her throat.

Then she set down her stone-cold cup of tea on the floor and stood decisively. Crossing the room, she stood with her back to him, touching her hair, dabbing carefully at her eyes, fingers fluttering at her waistband to make sure her blouse was tucked in, that she was all in one piece and as presentable as she could get. Then she reached for the radio.

Her radio was not new. It screeched annoyingly, and the antenna had to be positioned just right in order for the music not to be swamped in pure static, but tonight the world seemed to be working in her favor. One of the stations was playing slow dance music. Still facing the radio, Peggy took a deep breath. Then she turned around and looked at Steve.

He was watching her, of course. He sat on the edge of the couch, his big hands fidgeting a little nervously, slow comprehension dawning on his face as he realized what she was doing.

Peggy reached out a hand and cleared her throat. "Are you coming?"

Steve made a jerky, aborted movement. In that moment, he looked more like the young, bashful private than she had seen him in years. "I - I was hoping to take you out someplace nice Saturday night."

"No." Peggy's throat spasmed and her voice cracked, but she firmed up her mouth and fought to remain in control. "I refuse to take another rain check, Captain."

To his credit, he didn't protest. He got to his feet and approached her slowly, looking down at her with a mixture of earnest emotions tangled in his face. "Then, Agent Carter - will you show me how to dance?"

She taught him a slow foxtrot first, since that was what was on the air at the moment. Standing opposite him, his large hands careful on her waist and wrapped around her fingers, she led him in the step, step, side-together in time to the music. Something in the rhythm of it helped dispel a little of the tension that had built in the room during his unbelievable recital.

"How do you keep from running into things if you always go backwards?" Steve asked, following her meticulously, forehead furrowed.

Peggy's laugh was tremulous but genuine. All that time in the future, and he still didn't know the first thing about dancing. "Oh, that's your job." She joggled his arms. "A lady trusts her partner to steer her away from anything behind her."

Steve nodded soberly. "And what's your job, then?"

Pale, incredulous joy fluttered in Peggy's chest. She tipped back her head to look her impossible partner in the eye, and raised a teasing brow. "My job is to make you look good, Captain."

They danced for a very long time. The crackly little old radio played song after song as the two of them revolved around the tiny flat, treading the worn carpet, Steve carefully steering her around the little table and back. Peggy leaned close and felt his hand tighten gently at her back, drawing her still nearer, the reverent touch speaking his feelings more plainly than he'd managed in words. She laid her head on his chest; his cheek brushed her hair. The warmth and breadth of his shoulders and arms surrounded her, and for the first time in years, she felt herself enveloped in that sense of safety he had always seemed to carry with him.

Steve Rogers was more than a decade older than when she'd last seen him. He had more blood on his hands, more lives on his conscience, more pain in his heart. He was scarred and lonely and desperately tired, and she could see it all more clearly than he knew.

But at the core of him, he was still the same man, and Peggy knew that more certainly than she'd ever known anything in her life.

At length, the radio played the Star Spangled Banner and signed off for the night, empty static hissing through the speakers. They still stood swaying in the middle of the floor, Steve's arms around Peggy's waist, her hands slipping up to his shoulders. He felt a hitch and a sigh in her breath, and looked down suddenly to discover she was crying. There were tears in his own eyes too; emotion clogged his throat.

"Thank you," he whispered thickly, and folded her closer. Because whatever happened after this - whatever his future held, at least they'd had their dance, and he'd fulfilled his promise.

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"I should go," he said at last, reluctantly. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but the clock over the stove showed a time that was well past midnight, and he respected Peggy too much to put her reputation on the line. "Let you get your sleep."

Even as his arms loosened, Peggy leaned closer. She looked up - and oh, her face was so temptingly near.

"Where will you go?" she demanded. "Are you going back to…"

"Back to the future?" Steve filled in, and then internally kicked himself at the sudden recollection of a movie night in the Avengers tower, back before things had soured inside the team. He shook himself free of the memory of Tony gleefully critiquing the time travel scientific gobbledygook - Tony, the man who had eventually invented an actual, working time travel - the man who was at once both heroically dead, and not yet born.

She was watching him with steady, liquid eyes, he noticed, and dragged himself out of his memories, not wanting to lose a moment of his time with her. "No, I just have to find a place to bunk for the night. I don't need to go back to the future just yet."

"Don't go back to the future tonight," Peggy cut in, before he finished his sentence. Her fingers tightened around a handful of his shirt as if she could physically prevent him from going. "Not tonight."

"I won't," he promised. He tried to memorize her - the touch of her hands on his shoulders, the way she fit inside the curve of his arm, the face he knew both young and old. Dimly, he realized he was losing himself in her eyes again. They were big and clear, filled with silent promises and hope and tears. A man could spend a lifetime looking into those eyes…

Steve's stomach chose that moment to make itself heard, rumbling in a way that was clearly audible to them both. Steve flushed. Peggy laughed a little hysterically. She leaned back and looked him up and down - a quick flicker of her eyes. "When was the last time you ate?"

He couldn't remember. Something high-energy right before departing on this time trip - and then Thor's mother had given him some kind of alien sandwich when he'd handed the Aether over to her, but he had no good way of putting that into hours. "Not sure."

"At least let me fix you something." She was grasping for straws to keep him from leaving, and they both knew it.

"Thank you," he responded gravely.

She fumbled around the kitchenette, dropping a glass and the bread knife in the process; her hands were still unsteady. After the bread knife clattered to the floor, Steve stood and came over, catching a second glass neatly before it had time to become acquainted with the linoleum. He solemnly accepted the plate of burned toast and the glass of milk that she presented him, and made his way back to the couch.

Peggy sat on the other end and watched him as he ate. She accepted his offer of the least-burned piece of toast, and nibbled on it distractedly. Steve sipped at the milk and smiled encouragingly at her. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Peggy jumped, slightly embarrassed at being caught staring. "What did you do to your leg?"

It was his turn to be embarrassed. Thanos had done a number on his leg with that wickedly double-bladed weapon of his, and it was still healing, but he thought he'd hid the nagging limp rather well. His free hand moved unconsciously toward his knee before he realized it was a dead giveaway, since she hadn't specified which leg she was asking about. "Just a little stiff. Not a big deal."

She arched an eyebrow. "In a pig's eye," she shot back Bucky's old phrase, the thing he always said when Steve got himself hurt and tried to hide it. She even aimed for his flat Brooklyn twang.

Steve snorted into his toast, spraying crumbs across his lap.

And somehow, after Peggy's laughter had died down into half-sobbing giggles, and Steve, red and sheepishly chuckling, had brushed the crumbs off his trousers, the ice was broken, and things didn't feel so awkward anymore.

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When he was done with his food, Steve rose to leave. Peggy hated to see him go, suddenly terrified that the minute he walked out of her door he would vanish forever.

"Stay," she proposed. "You could sleep…" she looked around, grasping for an idea. The couch had a bed folded into it - her bed - and once it was unfolded for the night there wasn't enough floor space for even a small child to lie down, let alone Steve Rogers. Unless he wanted to fold himself into the sink, there was no place for him.

"There's a flophouse a block down," Steve assured her as he opened her front door and stood on the threshold. "I'll bunk there for tonight." He lingered, though, as if reluctant to go.

"I…" Peggy had to admit that his plan was a sensible one. She came as close to him as she dared, looking up into his face. At this range, she could feel when his breath caught at her proximity. "Tomorrow, then?"

"Tomorrow. We could get breakfast somewhere." He cleared his throat - his ears were growing red. "Peggy…"

Whatever he was going to say, he never finished it, because that was when she rose on her toes and kissed his cheek.

When she drew back, his eyes were wide as saucers, and somehow his hands had settled on her waist. He didn't let go, lightly holding her close to him, his face only an inch from hers.

"I missed you," he breathed helplessly, barely a sound in the stillness.

She flung caution to the wind and lost herself in his eyes, because how often did one get a second chance like this one? "I missed you too - so much."

His whole body swayed, his nose almost brushing hers, his eyes flickering across her face as one large hand tightened imperceptibly at her spine, drawing her nearer…

And then, reluctantly, he pulled back.

"I—" he managed.

She barely had time to be disappointed before a very familiar expression solidified on his face - the look she'd seen when the skinny recruit had first faced off against a larger opponent, the expression that he got before storming that last Hydra base - the look that meant Steve Rogers was going to do something incredibly, desperately reckless.

And then he closed the distance between them, cupped her face in one careful hand, and found her lips with his.

It was a gentle kiss - unpracticed, but filled with hope and longing and an emotion so deep that her very bones ached and thrilled with it. It was the answer to her own kiss from so long ago - a kiss he'd waited more than a decade to give her.

Much later, she would realize that they'd been standing in the open doorway where any neighbor might have looked in and seen them. She would realize that her makeup was smudged, discover that her hairpins had been slipping out on one side.

But right then, in that instant, it was just the two of them sharing a single perfect moment that had been so long delayed, so deeply impossible that they had only ever dreamed it in hopeless dreams. And in that moment, she knew to the depths of her soul just how much he loved her.

When he drew back, he looked somewhere between radiant and completely shocked that she'd let him kiss her. For her part, she felt like her body had been filled with sunlight; every nerve quivered from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

"Um," he said eloquently. He floundered for a moment, and then settled on "Goodnight?"

"Goodnight," she whispered back, too stunned to do more than echo the farewell back at him.

He devoured her face in one more comprehensive glance, touched her cheek briefly with an unsteady hand - and then vanished down the stairwell.

Mechanically, Peggy returned inside her flat, and locked the door. For a moment she stared at it, a hand pressed to her tingling lips. She could still feel the ghost of his hands on her back, on her face.

Then she turned and fled across her flat, scrambling around the table and clambering on the couch to get to the window. She was just in time to see him emerge from the street door, three floors below. He must have been as dazed as she felt - she watched him walk into a street lamp, address it absently in what was probably an apology, and then continue down the street toward the flophouse he'd mentioned. Even from the window she could see the lightness in his step.

And when he was out of sight, fully and completely, Peggy put her head down on the windowsill and found expression for all her mingled grief and joy and thankfulness and shock by crying her heart out.

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**Ah, this was a delight to do. I've wanted to post this for ages!**

**Fun fact: the memory Steve reminds her of is a callback to the oldest standalone Steve/Peggy short I've done, written all the way back in October 2015, a month after I started posting Sarcophagus. I've never posted it, but let me know if it's of interest and I might change my mind. :)**

**Thank you all for your kind reception to this story. You're the best ever, and I appreciate you all so very much. Have a great day!**

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**Ryn: oh my word, thank you so much for your kindness and encouragement! I'm delighted that these stories are a positive note in your life. Rest assured that I'll continue my stories for this pair for as long as I can. **


	3. Chapter 3

**NOTE: This chapter was updated 4/26/2020, and the chapter ending dramatically changed. If you read this chapter before that date, you will want to re-read it before continuing to chapter four.**

**Chapter Three**

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Fingers of early morning light crept through the narrow window and slipped across Peggy's pillow as the dawn broke. She was already awake; had been awake for hours, staring up at the ceiling, reliving the night before and wondering if it had all been some sort of dream.

Steve Rogers was alive. He had come to her - had danced with her - had left her with a kiss that still burned on her lips and made her heart stutter in her chest. Surely, surely it had all been a wild, insane, beautiful dream. It certainly wasn't the first time she'd dreamed of his return.

She doubted it would be the last.

There seemed no purpose to remain in bed any longer. Rolling out of the creaking hideabed, Peggy made it up mechanically, folding it away and rearranging the sofa cushions without paying the least attention to them. She dressed in her favorite tweed skirt and jacket, applied her brightest shade of lipstick, and took a deep breath as she adjusted her hat with fingers that trembled. Her white-faced reflection stared back at her from the small mirror by her door. Ducking her head, she looked away. She didn't want to recognize the painful hope burning in her reflected eyes.

Then, without allowing herself delay, she opened the door, stepped out with a firm tread, and descended the stairs of her apartment building.

And there he was.

Steve Rogers stood on the sidewalk, his back against the brownstone of the building, evidently waiting for her. He looked up and saw her at almost the same instant she caught sight of him, and for a moment the whole world reeled. Peggy closed her hand tightly around the narrow iron balustrade beside the steps, uncertain whether her knees would hold her.

She'd very nearly convinced herself that the night before had been a hallucination. Only the dark bruise on her hip from walking into the table the night before had given her any sort of proof that perhaps she hadn't dreamed the whole thing. But now he stood before her - tall, solid in the light of early morning, somehow even more real than the man in whose arms she had danced and wept only a few hours earlier.

"Hello, Steve," she said softly.

"Hi," he answered, his voice equally low. He was looking at her the same way he'd looked at her the night before - the way he'd looked at her during a few unguarded moments during the war.

It still made her heart turn over in her chest.

They might have gone on looking at each other forever, lost in each other's eyes, if it weren't for a newsboy who dashed between them, his heavy bag knocking against Steve's knees and breaking the moment. Steve blinked, and seemed to realize he was staring at her. "Hi," he said again, sounding rather breathless. He stared a minute longer, forehead furrowed, drinking in the sight of her, and then grinned and gestured. "Breakfast?"

Neither one had managed much sleep. They walked down the street side by side, Peggy's fingertips pressing into the rough fabric of his jacket as she took his arm; the hem of her skirt just brushing his leg.

It all felt completely surreal.

As luck would have it, Angie was working the breakfast shift at the diner when they arrived. She waggled her eyebrows and eyed Steve with significant interest as she brought Peggy's usual, followed by Steve's triple order of eggs, hash browns, and sausage.

"Anybody tell ya you look an awful lot like Captain America?" she asked Steve, setting his plates in front of him. Peggy stiffened, but Steve simply smiled.

"Sure," he said. "Sometimes. But my folks came from Ireland. I don't think I have any relatives in the US."

Angie eyed him up and down again, but seemed to let the issue go. "I know how that is," she agreed, nodding. "My second cousin's wife looks exactly like Hedy Lamar. I keep telling her she could make a fortune in Hollywood."

Somebody called her away then, and Steve and Peggy were left alone with their breakfast. Peggy had the sudden hysterical feeling that they probably looked like a perfectly normal couple facing one another over their bacon and eggs, rather than two people severed by time and space and unexpectedly reunited.

"Smooth," she commented rather shakily before the silence between them became awkward, and reached for the sugar. "Where did you learn that line?"

"Nat," Steve responded, then recollected himself visibly. "Natasha Romanoff, an agent I work with." He paused, pain in his eyes. "Used to work with. She never did give up trying to give me tips for going undercover."

Oh, yes - Natasha. Steve's friend - the woman he'd mentioned the night before who had laid down her life for her friends. Peggy wasn't entirely sure how she felt about the woman, but she couldn't do anything other than respect that kind of dedication.

After all, it wasn't unlike what Steve himself had done.

"Do I ever meet her?" she asked, and saw a thoughtful guardedness leap up in Steve's face.

"Maybe?" he responded, stabbing at the hash browns with his fork. "She didn't tell me much about her past."

"And you're not going to tell me much about my future." It wasn't a question. Peggy just knew it, the same way she knew that Steve was Steve. Sure enough, he shook his head, jaw squared.

"I know some things," he admitted slowly. "But I run the risk of creating a new timeline just by being here. Anything I tell you is liable to change, and a little misinformation can be dangerous."

Peggy nodded, musing. Even if his return did change the timeline, she couldn't bring herself to feel much of a loss over a changed future she might never have - not when the man she had mourned so deeply and for so long was sitting across from her, even if only for a short time.

"Was I happy?" she asked at last. "In that life, I mean."

Steve took his time chewing a mouthful of breakfast. When he could speak again, he nodded, slowly.

"You had a good life," he told her quietly, and that was enough. It was all she wanted to know.

Unlike the night before, their conversation over breakfast mostly centered around Peggy. Steve kept steering the conversation back to her life - the end of the war, her time in the New York SSR office, the trip to California.

"What about fellas?" he asked, and then floundered as though he hadn't meant to ask in quite that way.

Peggy laid down her spoon, folded her hands, and raised an eyebrow with a cool air that belied the suddenly increased tempo of her heartbeat. "What exactly are you implying, Captain?"

He fidgeted with his fork, dropped it, and only just managed to slap a hand onto it before it skittered off the edge of the table. "I mean," he said more carefully, "that it's been years. You're a smart, beautiful woman," the simplicity with which he uttered that sentiment very nearly took her breath away, "and I know I'm not the only guy with eyes." He looked down at the fork in his hand, and then back up at her. "You seeing anyone?"

Peggy arched her other eyebrow to match the first. "I hope you don't think I go around kissing people when I'm otherwise committed," she retorted, but there was no real bite in her words.

"No, ma'am," Steve was quick to say. "But as I recall, _I_ was the one who kissed you. Should've asked first."

The memory of last night's kiss was too much to dwell on. Peggy's breath snagged in her throat; she ducked her head momentarily to avoid meeting his eyes across the table.

"I've gone out with a few people," she said at last. "After all, I thought you were dead."

There was no blame in Steve's eyes when she looked up at him - only understanding and an old, deep sorrow. This man was certainly far older than the Steve Rogers who had naively made assumptions about her and Stark so long ago.

"I know," he said. "I was - or as good as, anyway. Found anybody special?"

Peggy tugged at the edge of her napkin. "I thought I had," she said simply. "He was a good man. You'd like him. But it turned out I wasn't as in love with him as I thought." Then, feeling this conversation was growing entirely too one-sided, she turned the table. "And what about you?" she demanded. "It's been more than twice as long for you. Surely you've found someone."

Steve crumbled the crust of his toast between his fingers. "Went out on some dates," he said, voice low. He paused, then offered her a crooked smile. "Turns out it's a little hard to find somebody in a world where everyone knows you only as Captain America."

"But certainly not impossible?" She was sure there were exceptions, but at the moment Peggy couldn't think of a single reason why any woman wouldn't be attracted to him. He'd constantly been dodging them back during the war - secretaries, WACs, star-struck women of every nationality. British to the core, Peggy barricaded herself behind her teacup. "I imagine there were plenty of women who would have been delighted to get to know you as Steve Rogers."

He looked her straight in the eye. "Probably," he admitted. "And for a while there was one I thought maybe things could work out with - but it didn't end up going anywhere." He shrugged, looking slightly sheepish. "Turns out she was related to you."

Peggy set her teacup down so suddenly that the liquid inside sloshed over into the saucer. "Surely not my granddaughter?" she demanded, horrified. Steve shook his head hastily.

"No, not a direct descendent." His toast was now a little pile of crumbs; he absently pushed them together with his fork as Peggy's heartbeat slowly returned to its normal speed. "I gave up trying after that. Haven't gone out with a girl in five years." He shook his head at her unspoken query. "Just didn't seem worth the trouble, and wasn't fair to them."

There was direct honesty in his face - honesty and weariness, and a spark of something that made Peggy's heart promptly speed back up again. He was telling her the truth.

"Why?" she persisted, even though it was probably a bad idea. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Why wasn't it fair to them?"

Steve's fork hit the edge of his plate with a clatter as he let it fall to the tabletop. He didn't move to pick it up, his attention wholly focused on her. "Because I realized I was measuring them all against you."

There could be no response to such an answer. It felt as though he had just laid his heart among the breakfast things on the table between them, and after all this time she wasn't sure she knew what to do with it.

So she just stared wordlessly at him - at the lines of his face, so familiar, yet so changed - at the way his shoulders hunched ever so slightly inward - at the blue of his eyes, all at once anxious and hopeful, but with that spark of something she was afraid to put a name to. She remembered now exactly _why_ Steve had dodged all those women during the war. It had been a long time before she'd realized that he had eyes only for her, and even longer before she'd allowed herself to fully believe it.

If the way he'd kissed her last night was any indication, his feelings for her hadn't changed.

"Steve," she breathed, and then paused, searching for words. Something warm and ephemeral was rising in her chest - _happiness_, she realized vaguely. He leaned closer, looking at her like he had the night before, just after he'd kissed her.

"Need a refill?" Angie chirped over their heads.

Peggy jumped so violently that she nearly upset her plate. Steve started as well, the abrupt movement knocking his fork off the edge of the table. He groaned and disappeared after it, groping under the seat.

"No, thank you Angie," Peggy managed. Her friend's expression was very bright and very interested, and at that moment Peggy devoutly wished her at the other end of the earth.

"Sure?" Angie leaned over and refilled Steve's cup anyway, giving him an appraising once-over as he emerged from under the table, fork in hand. "Can I getcha anything else?"

_Some peace and quiet_, Peggy wanted to say, but restrained herself, fixing her attention on her plate instead, only half-listening as Steve fumbled his way through Angie's flow of conversation.

Only when Angie was called away by another customer did they both relax, staring across the table at one another. The friendly waitress had broken the moment, and Peggy suddenly found herself very depressed.

"I'm afraid I'm not quite the same woman you knew," she said, rather bitterly. She knew Steve had changed, and it didn't seem to make a bit of difference to how her traitorous heart felt about him, but she had changed as well. Perhaps if he knew the woman she'd turned out to be, he wouldn't still be looking at her that same way anymore.

His smile was a little sad, but the way he was looking at her didn't change. "And I'm not quite the same guy," he said. "It's been a long time for both of us, and I don't - I don't expect anything from you. Fill me in on what else I've missed?"

So she did, plunging back into the story of her return to New York, and her temporary position as head of the SSR office. It was somehow a relief to take refuge in the narrative. Steve Rogers always had been a good listener.

"But you probably know all this," she interrupted herself in the middle of her recital. "Surely I must have told you at some point."

Steve shrugged. She narrowed her gaze, trying to break him, but he just leaned back, a ghost of a grin on his lips that exasperated her even as she was reminded of old days. He had never been this good at keeping secrets. This man had clearly been trained during their time apart.

Between them, they dragged out the meal as long as they could, picking at their food, eating as slowly as humanly possible. Every so often, when Peggy glanced discreetly in his direction, she would find him doing the same, his warm blue eyes fixed on her. He never looked away in those moments, his gaze lost in her own until some clatter from the kitchen broke through.

She wondered if he would have to leave after this - if this would be her last chance to be with him. The thought made her heart ache unbearably. She'd survived his loss once, and she knew she could do it again, but the prospect was far from pleasant.

Only after every single crumb of his toast was gone, did Steve reluctantly excuse himself. "I could talk to you all day, but you'll be late for work."

"Hang work," Peggy retorted with sudden and unusual vehemence - a sentiment which she had never expressed in her life. Heads at nearby tables turned in surprise at her raised voice, but she didn't care. "I don't want to lose you again, not just yet."

Something tender sprang into Steve's face; something so raw and hopeful that Peggy felt as though she'd violated his privacy simply by seeing it. He laid his hand over her own in a gentle move that made her skin prickle and a sudden lump grow in her throat. "I won't leave," he promised. "But you got your work to do, and I know how important it is."

"Not as important as you." Peggy felt her face hardening into the expression her brother had once called 'pugnacious.' "Once, Steve Rogers, you promised to show me around New York. I intend to call in that promise."

He looked unmistakably delighted, eyes filling with warm pleasure. "You sure they'll let you off?" he asked, his fingers closing more firmly around hers - and right then Peggy knew that nothing else mattered. She couldn't bear to ask Steve how much time he had left before he had to leave, but she also couldn't stomach the thought of missing a minute of whatever time she could spend with him.

So she raised her eyebrows. "As it happens," she archly informed him, "I've had a personal emergency that will necessitate my leaving the office for the day."

He grinned suddenly - a boyish expression that she hadn't seen in far too long. "You probably know New York better than I do at this point," he pointed out.

Peggy reached for her handbag and rather reluctantly withdrew her hand from his. "Not your New York," she retorted. "Half a moment while I phone in." She started to rise, and then paused. "Promise me you won't go while my back's turned."

He looked her straight in the eye and nodded. "I promise."

The phone in the diner was in a little closet back behind the counter, but Angie let her slip back to use it without complaint. She hovered as close as she could, listening shamelessly while Peggy informed the agent on the other end of the wire that a family emergency had arisen, and she'd be unable to come in to work that day.

It wasn't easy to explain that she wouldn't be coming in. Her position as acting chief was a tenuous one, and one she hoped would become permanent. Calling in late like this wouldn't do her standing any favors though.

When Peggy finally put the receiver back on the hook, she felt jittery and nervous from head to toe. In just a few hours her whole life had been turned on its head. She wondered if she went back into the dining area, whether Steve would have disappeared after all, a phantom of her own memory.

"He's some dish, English."

Peggy started at her friend's voice, and spun around to find Angie surveying her intently, head cocked, both hands on her hips. A dish towel dangled from her fingers, nearly touching the ground, and a teasing grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. Somewhat thrown off by the intensity of her friend's regard, Peggy attempted to pull herself together.

"He's an old friend," she admitted. Somehow Steve was seeming less and less real now that he was out of her sight. Her breath felt unsteady.

Angie eyed her. "Right," she said slowly, not bothering to hide her disbelief. "Tell me that again when you don't look like you've seen a ghost."

Well then. Peggy bit her lip and busied herself with her purse so she could hide her face for a moment. "You're sure he isn't a ghost, Angie?"

Angie snorted. "Ghosts don't clean up three orders of bacon, hash browns and eggs, and still look hungry when they're done." She hesitated. "You okay, Peggy? Need a Pepto or something?"

Angie's practicality was exactly what she needed. Peggy took a deep breath, and laughed a little as she looked up at her friend.

"Thank you, Angie," she said. "I'm all right."

And for the first time in longer than she cared to remember, Peggy realized it might actually be true.

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**Hi, folks! The world has turned upside down, but I'm still here and so are you! Thought I'd do my part to help make your lives more interesting and give you something to read. :) I know life is crazy right now, and I hope you all are doing okay. I am working from home and keeping busy. I don't see many people though, so feel free to drop a line and say hi! Stay well, and stay safe. You all are important to me.**

**This chapter was a beast. I've rewritten nearly the entire thing several times, and if I don't post it now, then I never will. Thanks for your patience and support!**

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**Replies to guests:**

**Sardinecake: Your PM feature is turned off, so I can't reply to your reviews - but I wanted to thank you! You left such kind and lovely reviews on so many of my stories, and they just made my day. :). Thanks tons!**

**Ryn: Thanks so much for your kind words! I know what you mean - I have a hard time reading stories that pair Steve and Peggy with other people too. And thank you! I'll definitely take a look at that older story of mine and think about publishing it.**

**DBZFAN45: Thanks for your review! Yes, this is my first time publishing a story that involves the Agent Carter storyline, so hopefully it'll turn out to your satisfaction! Thanks for reading!**

**Guest (Feb 8): Thank you!**

**Laughy Taffy: Hi, friend! So good to hear from you. Glad you're enjoying this story! (Also yum - my favorites - thank you!) Hope all is well with you. :)**

**Guest (Feb 22): Thank you! I am so, so glad you found that chapter endearing and romantic. I liked the lamp post moment too. :D Thank you very much for reading, and for taking the time to drop off a review!**


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